What I'm Trying to Say
by Moonlight Shadow4
Summary: Sometimes James got tongue-tied around Lily and said the wrong thing. This was not one of those times, even if the words weren't everything he wanted to say.  LxJ


A/N: I wrote this a while back and posted it up on dA and my Tumblr. I'm not really coming back to fan fiction; this was just a fun one-shot I did for my friend, Sarah, AKA Kit, who is my artist and co-creator of our webcomic _Ever Night._ That's kind of what I'm doing now, guys. Anyway, enjoy!

**What I'm Trying to Say**

_"Expelliarmus!"_

Lily's wand sailed through the air, hit the grass, rolled a bit, and stopped near the lake edge. Her green eyes flashed as her gaze snapped to black-haired culprit. "Damn it, Potter!"

"Don't be like that, Evans," said James, hopping down the knoll to her as Lily stormed over to her fallen wand. James shrugged a bit. "I wouldn't've done it if I didn't know you'd try to Hex me before actually listening to me-"

_"IMPEDIMENTA!"_

"Oh-! Bloody-!" James dove behind the tree Lily had previously been sitting against. The force of the jinx hitting the tree vibrated throughout the entire trunk while bits of bark went sailing through the air. Breathing deeply for a couple of moments, he poked his head around. "So...I shouldn't call this foreplay with you, right?"

_"Confundo!"_

James ducked back, muttering a quick _"Protego"_to himself.

Waiting a long moment, James finally dared to poke his head around once more. "Are you done hurling spells at me?"

Looking tired and flustered, Lily nodded. When James came out from behind the tree, Lily sighed and looked up to the late spring sky. "What do you want, Potter?" she asked, tone without bite or malice.

James balked. What did he want...?

"I..." He hesitated. She glanced at him impatiently.

"Well, spit it out."

Scratching his cheek, James laughed and gave a sheepish grin. "It's the end of sixth year, Lily. I'm sorry I've been such a bother to you, but I don't really know how to...you know...talk to you."

Lily arched an eyebrow. Those deep green eyes fixed on him wonderingly. "You're talking right now, Potter. You're always,_always_talking."

James waved a hand before pushing it into his mussed hair, realized what he was doing, stopped, and simply grimaced, bemused. "I know that. I wanted to really communicate with you. Just you and me." She watched him charily. "Honest!" He held his hands up again. "Sirius, Remus, and Peter aren't around. Just me."

Lily watched his face for a moment. "You still disarmed me," she pointed out, emphasizing with a flick of her wand.

"Because I knew you'd rather attack me than talk to me."

"Because you're an annoying git who wouldn't bugger off through the preliminaries!"

"True." James nodded his head. "And any other girl would stop what she was doing to talk with me. Plenty did."

Lily snorted. "I noticed."

His hand passed through his hair again. His wand tapped against his scalp a few times before his whole hand swung down again. "...but none of them were you, Evans. I really wanted to talk to you. And I think I figured out what I've been doing wrong."

"Have you? You realized how bloody annoying you are and how much of a toerag you've been?" Lily tossed her head, sending soft tendrils of deep amaranth fluttering about her face. James had noticed the shift in hue, from that dark near-ruby hue to that amaranth: a result of many days spent studying beneath the pale British sky.

"That," he admitted, "and that I tried to talk to you like every other girl. But you're not. You're Lily Evans, a very powerful Muggle-born witch who probably has more magic in her little finger than I have in my entire being-and trust me, I am very much magical, thank you."

James paused-he earned a smile from her. Emboldened, he persisted. "And you are the loveliest girl I've ever seen-and I really mean that! We've grown up together here since first year, and you're still the most beautiful girl in the whole world."

Lily laughed quietly and turned those emerald eyes askance, though on her face shown an erubescent smile. "Appreciated, Potter, but that's hardly true. There are far prettier girls in this world and really, what does 'pretty' mean anyway?"

The words spilled out of her quickly, abashed, and quite deflective in nature.

James looked to her quietly. "In my world."

"What?" This time Lily met his eyes.

Neither seemed to breathe and neither moved towards the other.

"I said," he repeated slowly, his own hazel eyes blinking boyishly at her, seeking to say the words correctly-to get the correct words out at all-and searching her face in the hopes she'd believe him, "you're the prettiest girl in my world. I can only live in my world, Lily, because I can only live my life... And in my world, you're the prettiest, loveliest, most wonderful person there."

And for once, Lily Evans had no words to say for whatever words she might have had as response had been stolen from her and verily expelled out of her mind and body and soul and sent spinning and drifting into the warming air of spring at the end of their sixth year at Hogwarts.


End file.
